Christian groups are disappointed in the box-office returns of The Nativity Story and worry it means Hollywood won’t make more faith-based movies, and they should be.  Hollywood is, above all, a business and they want to make money.  If Christians believe Hollywood makes "extremely bigoted, anti-Christian movies’ because they do well at the box office" (an asinine statement, by the way), they need to support the good faith-based films that are released.

This year we saw the release of two high-profile faith-based films:  One Night with the King and The Nativity Story.  I’ve seen both of these films.  One Night with the King was over-wrought, poorly acted, and badly adapted; it’s no wonder the film was a flop.  I also saw The Nativity Story, which I liked.  As films of this nature go I thought it was beautifully filmed and well-acted.  I think the reason Nativity’s box-office was so meager is that it presents absolutely nothing original.  Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, knows the story of Jesus’ birth.  The film was a faithful adaption of the Bible story, so why should hard-working families spend upwards of $50 to take their family out to see such a film?  I mean, are Christians Biblically obligated to support all faith-based entertainment?

As usual, The Passion of the Christ is brought up as ruler by which all faith-based films should be measured.  That’s  just silly.  In this article, Ted Baehr cites how Mel Gibson sought out churches to begin drumming up interest in the film. Yeah, he used a made-up controversy to convince a group of vocal church leaders that Hollywood, and those nasty Jews who run it, were trying to keep his film from being released.  Bullshit, of course, but churches turned themselves into moneychangers in the Temple and helped make Mel even richer than he already is — good job!  He also mentions Disney’s campaign for The Chronicles of Narnia.  Again, this is a bad example.  Narnia is a film that can be viewed without understanding, or even caring about, any of C. S. Lewis’ religious themes.  It’s a fantasy film featuring fantastical creatures and settings; I doubt seriously it was Christians that drove the film’s box office.  More likely it was a post-Lord of the Rings desire that drove people into the theater.

Quite frankly, I think television is a much better medium for faith-based films and entertainment.  The costs are less and more people will be willing to watch since, for the most part, it’s free.  In fact, television has been a medium very friendly to faith-based entertainment and has seen much success in the area.  In it’s heyday Seventh Heaven was watched by millions of people;  Joan of Arcadia was also well-received for a short time; every year ABC shows The Ten Commandments  and millions watch; the Hallmark Channel has had a lot of success adapting Janette Oke’s award-winning faith-based novels (Love Comes Softly, Love’s Enduring Promise, Love’s Abiding Joy).

I’ve been following a few of the articles about the networks’ attempts to turn back the FCC’s recent intrusion into our television watching habits.  I have to admit I’m surprised the court seems willing to ask the FCC hard questions, but the FCC’s recent rulings based on the bitching and moaning a very, very small minority of the millions of people who watch television on a daily basis deserved to be question, and questioned thoroughly.  Don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe broadcast television should be unfettered in its use of bad language and its portrayal of sex ands violence.  I believe there should be a strictly enforced family hour of television every night of the week on the broadcast networks.  I find some of the programming networks air in the time period when you’re absolutely sure children will be watching to be questionable and full of too much sexual innuendo and bad language.  For example, I’m a huge fan of How I Met Your Mother, but it airs in what used to be the family hour of television and there is no way in hell I would watch that if a child was in the room.  Yes, I have control of the television in my home, and I don’t believe it’s the responsibility of the networks to police every home in America that allows children to watch programming intended for adults, but I do believe they have a responsibility to keep the family hour…well, family-oriented.

The main problem here is money.  Family-oriented shows are rarely huge successes.  The days of Little House on the Prairie drawing millions of viewers are long gone, especially when you have family-themed cable networks drawing away millions of kid viewers.  However, I still believe the networks should keep that family hour clean.  These shows don’t have to be the highest production quality, or have million-dollar actors attached to them.  They just have to be good.  In that same vein, I don’t think it’s such a terrible thing that live award shows have a few seconds time delay.  It’s well known that award shows are often viewed by everyone in the family.  If Cher and Nicole Ritchie want to utter "fuck" and "shit," well, OK, but that doesn’t mean the networks are wrong to bleep that.  They’ve been doing it for years and I don’t know why Hollywood and the First Amendment Police see this as some sort of Constitutional crisis.

All this being said, I think the FCC is going too far.  I don’t want broadcast television to start acting like Nip/Tuck, but I see no problem with airing programming geared towards adults that may contains some language inappropriate for children — put the kids to bed or turn on the TIVO.  Don’t sit their watching CSI and then get pissed because the show horrible violence and gruesome autopsies.  What do you expect from a show like that?  I also think the FCC should consider context when people start bitching and moaning about bad language and questionable acts.  Movies like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List are aired without editing for content or language, and they should be.  They have an historical context that would be lessened if the language or content was edited out.  The same goes for the news.  If a reporter is interviewing someone live and a curse work accidentally gets through, then people should just get the hell over it.  Why should PBS have to bleep curse words uttered by soldiers in the middle of a war?  It says a lot about right-wing Conservative who fly the flag whenever they talk of war, but God forbid these men and women get a little coarse when bombs are exploding all around them.

I’m not sure the court will really put an end to the FCC’s recent crack-d0wn on potty language, but at least it has people talking about the stupidity of their arbitrary rulings.